You’ve been gone for four years today/tomorrow. I don’t know exactly when you left, but I know what you left, and I know where you went. Today I’d like to leave this place and join you, but that’s a selfish thought. I’m depressed. The small, accumulated failures of life that wax and wane have all ganged up on me today in a compounded tidal wave. Money’s tight, time’s short, the workload seems insurmountable, you’re gone. It all feels like the same stabbing pain and too much to bare some days, and today is one of them.

We watched almost all of the videos we have of you this morning. I still hear them playing in the living room as I hide in my office typing to you and gearing up to get back to tax returns. There is one video that I have never watched – the video of your funeral. Maybe I’ll watch it alone today. Maybe I won’t.

I miss you, and I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you, but when I see you again, I’ll probably drop the grudge I hold against myself for that failure.

I sit here at my desk, having just finished payroll taxes for the month, blowing tears and mucus all over the keyboard, while thinking about Tiggy, He’s a boy I have never met, although you may have. Who here on this side knows the ties binding souls in Heaven? Maybe you two are acquainted because those you left behind have found each other. I’m tethered to several who are, like me, still bound to the old flesh, united in the shared sorrow of the death of a child. The club is monstrous, but the members are precious to me.

Today it’s been four years since Tiggy went home. I know the anguish of his family; I feel it. It throbs into my being and resonates harmonically with the black spot left by your death, intensifying the dull ache into the stabs of terror I felt on the day of your accident. It will never be over, and it’s only the limitations of the human ability to process information that allows any reprieve. Most of the time the memory is pushed aside by more pressing present needs. But often, it surfaces. Sometimes I’m pleased to remember a friendly boy who waves at me while tapping his feet to a Buddy Holly tune, but sometimes I dwell on a different memory: that monster of grief and torture that lives just under the surface. I’m never without hope, but at times I lose sight of it for a while.

Each day we pray that God would say “hi” to you. Today I’m praying that He says “hi” to another boy as well.

C. Everett Koop, a man who helped me turn from atheism to Christianity, died yesterday.

About child rearing he said:

“If you want to say how can we step into childhood and make it better for them, I would start at the activity level. I’d like to say, ‘Let your kids go out and play.’ Then I’d say, ‘You’re not going to do that are you?’ Make your kids go out and play. Kids ought to grow up the way you and I grew up and we grew up fifty years apart or maybe more. But we did the same things. Now who’s out playing in the afternoon? Nobody. Risks I think are the thing that make life important and everything that you and I do is risk vs. benefit. Is there a risk to sending your kid out? Absolutely. Is there a benefit? It exceeds the risk.”

Later, his son David died while playing. He fell from a mountain while climbing, along with a big chunk of rock. He was only 20 years old. Dr. Koop, a children’s surgeon, said of the accident:

“I might be better able to help parents of dying children, but for quite a while I felt less able, too emotionally involved. And from that time on, I could rarely discuss the death of a child without tears welling up into my eyes.”

I know exactly what he means.

Years later, Dr. Koop and his wife wrote a book (Sometimes Mountains Move) about David’s accident. In it they say, “It was ten weeks after David died when his Bible came into our hands. His book mark was in Jude. We opened his Bible and read the last thing that he had read: ‘And now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling…’ ” God was (and is) more than able to keep us from falling, but sometimes he chooses not to do so. We tumble from mountains, we toddle into swimming pools.

Dr. Koop’s words comfort me, and I am learning alongside him about how God’s grace is sufficient for our troubles, even when we cannot know why He allows some things to happen. Especially when…

It pleases me to think about my son, Weeble, being able to meet one more great Christian, and to talk about things I can only imagine. Dr. Koop, in my wandering mind, points to Jesus and excitedly exclaims, “That’s who held my hand as I operated on thousands of children.” Weeble answers, “That’s who pulled me out of that swimming pool and healed me of maladies I didn’t even know I suffered.” Then both, in perfect peace, worship their Creator.

Weeble, today is your cousin’s 18th birthday. He re-posted a picture he took of you shortly before you died, and he commented that your are a great kid. You really are, too. You were so full of adventure when you were with us, as I’m sure you still are today. Your older brothers and I sometimes talk together and picture you rolling down some heavenly mountain on your scooter, free from risk and harm.

I talked to the monument man today. At long last your headstone will be ready next week. I am anxious to see it, and I am also dreading the day. We asked to be present for it’s arrival at your grave.

How I wish the last thing I can buy for you was anything else.

We thank God every day for your life, and we ask Him to greet you for us. I am so grateful that through His blood, we can all be together again someday.

Your baby brother Simon reminds me of you. I’m sorry that he will never have met you in this plane. The rest of us have memories, and I’m worried that he might feel like an outsider someday. He may never know the weight of grief that we know, but still its effects on the rest of us will also take a toll on him.

Today is Elijah’s 4th birthday. We miss him very much. Would you please give him a hug and a kiss from his mommy, daddy, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, brothers, and sisters? We all are looking forward to the day when we can hug and kiss him for ourselves again, but until then we need you to do it for us. Also, Jesus, I want to thank you for taking care of Elijah for us. This world is not our home, and sometimes it is a very difficult place in which to live. Thank you that you took Elijah to our real home, and that he no longer has to deal with the “stuff” of this life. Even so, we miss him desperately. We long to be with him (with You, Lord). Thank you, Jesus.

We had a little party for what should have been your fourth birthday yesterday. It was so sad, of course, without you there, but we wanted to celebrate that four years ago, we held you in our arms for the first time. Kissed you for the first time. Saw your blue eyes for the first time. And although we didn’t know it would be so short, began to enjoy our days with you here in this life.

We were so blessed to have you in our lives. The memories we have with you are not nearly enough, but they are precious. We love you very much and miss you with a mighty ache that wracks us to the core of our being. We watched some of your videos today, and laughed instead of crying. You always made me smile, and you still do, even through the grief. Happy birthday, sweet Weeble.

Tomorrow is your fourth birthday. As I prepare to celebrate that with the family, I realize how much I miss you.

Heike has made a lot of decorations and party favors, and we have ordered a bouncy house. Many of your friends will be here to help us celebrate. I wish you could be here for the party.

Katie has been taking infant swimming lessons. How I wish that we had given you the same opportunity to survive your accident. She is doing well and is learning to float on her back and swim for short distances.

Your baby brother Simon, whom you never got to meet, is growing big and plump. He smiles a lot and has started to laugh out loud at Mommy and your brothers and sisters and me.

You have been gone for over one year now. During the days right after you died, I told many people that we would be going on, not without you, but toward you. After all of this time, I believe that even more strongly now than I did then. I live everyday in the anticipation of being with you again in the presence of our Father.

I know that you are having fun there at home while we must stay here for a while in the Far Country. When we meet again you can introduce me to family members I have never known, and I will do the same for you. I can’t wait to see you and I love you.